WoW is a juvenile game that barely ever touches upon romance. How are you supposed to represent LGBT since loving relationships and mature content are rarely, if ever, explored by Blizzard? Blizzard makes gameplay focused games; not narrative. It's like asking to make chess more open to LGBT.

If you look a bit closer, romance and relationships are far more prevalent in WoW than most people would claim. Make of that what you will.

Varian had a wife, Jaina now has Kalec, Alexstraza had Krasus, Rhonin had Veressa, and Eranikus for Ysera, but some of those are dragons and really they don't discuss their personal relationships much. Again I don't mind or care, when I see Kale and Jaina in conflict I feel bad, when I think Thrall could lose Aggra to his own arrogance I get furious at him. They are characters but other than the lore interactions in game none of them seem to really have a defined sexuality. I wouldn't care if they never did. They are pixels, AI's given orders. If they were people... I might care a touch more.

WoW is a juvenile game that barely ever touches upon romance. How are you supposed to represent LGBT since loving relationships and mature content are rarely, if ever, explored by Blizzard? Blizzard makes gameplay focused games; not narrative. It's like asking to make chess more open to LGBT.

Except chess doesn't attempt to mirror actual real life with the addition of MAGIC! WoW has societies, races, and genders. It has dynamic people and characters you see human qualities in, qualities you may in fact see in yourself! Just imagine how boring a game WoW would be if all of the characters were gender neutral, looked the same, and never referenced any feelings for one another, be they love or hate. We would, in fact, be playing chess!

It's really silly to say that WoW never touches on romance. Mentions of wives, husbands, and children happen all over the place. For crying out loud, we had an entire quest chain about Aggra's love for Thrall at the end of Cata, with non-veiled topics of settling down and having kids with each other.

What I do find interesting and worth pointing out is that you don't see the romance in this game. This would mean that you probably wouldn't even notice if Blizzard slipped in a "Help save my same-gendered life partner!" quest. To you, it would mean absolutely nothing. To someone else, it would mean the world. Representation is an amazing thing, my friend. You may not be aware because there's a good chance you're already represented and have always been in every game you've ever played.

It's silly to say that Blizzard shouldn't include it because it's not gameplay focused. This game is 100% narrative driven and that's what makes it good. Almost any good game has narrative, even chess (two equal forces fighting each other for total domination!). Broadening that narrative to include a larger audience would be a good thing for Blizzard to do, as it would invite an audience that may not have tried the game out to come into the world and say, "Hey, you can see yourself here too."

First of all yes people do leave high paying/leadership jobs after 17 years. In today's market it's not pension based, at his level it is stock/bonus/401k based. His actual salary probably made up very little of what he made. A few years ago I left a Fortune 50 company after 15 years, I made a boat load of money, had stock options and my 401k was heavily contributed to. I was a senior operations manager, which means I flew around and made sure people at our different facilities were doing their jobs right and dropping the hammer when needed, it was a great job. I was offered a promotion and it just didn't excite me anymore, I talked it over with my wife and we decided that at this point in our lives (we were both 44 then and she is a stay at home wife/mother) that I didn't need to do something I was going to be happy doing. So I turned down the promotion and told them I was leaving, we worked out a healthy severence package and I took the next 18 months to figure out what I wanted to do next since I didn't have a "plan" when I left and now I am doing something way below what my paygrade was and having the time of my life. Just some food for thought.

On the article quote. I don't find it homophobic and more importantly my openly gay daughter didnt when she read it. She said it's a fantasy video game (which she plays) and politics and all that other non-sense has no place in it and then she said that hasn't anyone ever not seen a male Blood Elf dance, if that isn't gay enough for you then you got real issues LOL. I tend to take her word on these types of issues since they directly effect her and her peer group. She said if she wants politics she knows plenty of places were she can get involved but when she just wants some down time and plays WoW gender/orietation/whatever else those sensitive types like to cry about are the last thing she wants to think about. Man I miss her being a little kids, she uses way to many words now lol.

Just my .02 worth

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Originally Posted by Pacster

Lore is not just the obvious stuff in game but the books as well. And yeah, if they talk about relationships it's always straight relationships. Not just Thrall got a kid(and an entire love story)....Wrynn obviously got one, the old deceased Tauren Leader has one...Saurfang too...you do not always have love storys(like Jainas) but kids give you a clear idea about their sexuality.

The question is not if there has to be a homosexual in the game...the question is why there is none. Why is it even a topic? Why didn't they come up with one yet? I mean, what would be the problem about letting little androgyne Anduin Wrynn, the dedicated future hero, be gay? Or why not having a gay dragon(I mean, they are aspects...they shouldn't have to be sexual at all...but they are straight!). Sylvanas would have made an interesting homosexual as well. The question is not "why?", it's "why not?". How can it be normal if we still have to discuss about it in freaking games?

I mean, nobody expects Blizz to let Thrall explore his homosexual side(tho that would be a strong statement against public clichés)....but it wouldn't hurt them to throw a bone to the LGBT-people.

Gay people can't have kids or get married, hmmmm I guess that all these gay people that have kids by various means or get married are just figments of peoples imaginations. My wife and daughter just went to a imaginary same sex wedding.......

Right, so for those of you who don't know, this is effectively a list of Blizzard's best games (ignore WoD, since it's not out yet and as such can't be judged). In other words: Blizzard just lost one of the main people responsible for their BEST games. And you can say WoTLK was amongst the best, but it wasn't. End of story. It was, from an objective point of view, the 2nd worst xpac. This loss, along with Greg Street (AKA Ghostcrawler) has cemented the fact that Blizzard is becoming the next EA.

You have responded to several posts on this thread with the same ignorant statement each time. I registered only to respond to you, because your lack of understanding is sickening. You don't understand that entertainment is not responsible for white-knighting all of the LGBT community in their products. You are the reason why people don't WANT to put LGBT content in their games, because it attracts people like you in the end, and all you are is a small person who can't accept that people don't accept you. Grow up and see the world for what it is and shut your mouth when you've got nothing to say.

You have responded to several posts on this thread with the same ignorant statement each time. I registered only to respond to you, because your lack of understanding is sickening. You don't understand that entertainment is not responsible for white-knighting all of the LGBT community in their products. You are the reason why people don't WANT to put LGBT content in their games, because it attracts people like you in the end, and all you are is a small person who can't accept that people don't accept you. Grow up and see the world for what it is and shut your mouth when you've got nothing to say.

Who?

Originally Posted by ForestWalker

They are characters but other than the lore interactions in game none of them seem to really have a defined sexuality.

What is a defined sexuality? If Thrall is together with a girl, he's straight. If he was together with a guy he would be gay. Would his sexuality be any more defined had they just introduced Aggra as a guy?